Slashdot Mirror
Boston Declares Health Emergency Due To Massive Flu Outbreak
skade88 writes "Boston has seen 10 times more flu cases this year than last. They are now up to 700 cases and counting, with 18 deaths in the city. The city of Boston has declared a public health emergency in the wake of the epidemic. 'The CDC said the proportion of people visiting health care providers with flu-like symptoms climbed from 2.8 percent to 5.6 percent in four weeks. By contrast, the rate peaked at only 2.2 percent during the relatively mild 2011-2012 flu season. The estimated rate of flu-related hospitalizations in the U.S. was 8.1 per 100,000 people, which is high for this time of year, according to Dr. Joe Bresee, chief of the epidemiology and prevention branch of the CDC’s influenza division. The agency’s next advisory will be issued Friday.' As previously discussed on Slashdot it would also be nice for your friends and coworkers for you to stay home if you are sick."
It's fairly simple. When employers insist that you need to go to a doctor when you are sick and get proof or they won't believe that you were, then people decide "if I have to go out anyway, I may as well go to work."
Also, when one person in an office is very sick, then they get a lot of negative attention. If it spreads and a number of people get sick, then they were one of the unlucky ones.
I used to stay home when sick, until I had a manager who told me that if I took any more time off I would probably lose my job. So when I next got the flu I took drugs and went to work. I can tell you though, I really enjoyed my lengthy closed door meeting with him and HR that day. I don't think they were happy I scheduled that meeting.
Here's a fun fact to contemplate. The version wandering the US right now is H3N2. The prevalent strain making the rounds in China is H1N1. How long before it crosses the pacific and starts round two of the process. Folks if you haven't gotten vaccinated against this yet. DO IT NOW! These strains are no fun and the current vaccine is supposedly a good match against the strains most prevalent.
Which strains were in this year's vaccine?
Oops, answered my own question:
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm315365.htm
Based on that information and the recommendations of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, the strains selected for inclusion in the 2012-2013 flu vaccines are:
A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)-like virus
A/Victoria/361/2011 (H3N2)-like virus
B/Wisconsin/1/2010-like virus.
But by default you won't be paid if you stay home, so there's still an incentive to try to come in and hide it if you feel you're at all on the borderline, and to come back as soon as you no longer look visibly sick (even if you're still contagious).
Some employers do give their employees a certain number of sick days to reduce that incentive, but labor law in most states doesn't require it, and many employers don't. For example, neither Starbucks nor McDonald's offer sick days to their retail workers. Oddly, they do offer sick days to their non-retail workers (office employees, e.g. accountants, managers, etc.), despite those employees not being customer-facing. Perhaps they care about whether corporate HQ is sick more than whether customers get sick. :P
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Oh yes, the doctor's note. Well isn't THAT just a wonderful thing to go get. Let's take a look at my options:
1. Lie in bed, eat some nyquil and chicken noodle soup, and sleep the sickness away to let your body heal.
2. Sit in a waiting room for 6 hours, surrounded by dozens of people sick with everything under the sun while you're immune system is compromised, only to have a doctor look at you for 3 seconds, tell you you have a cold or whatever, followed by paying $30 for the doctor's note. After that, I can go home after essentially putting in the equivelant hours of a full day's work surrounded by sick people, get nowhere even remotely close to enough sleep and rest to heal, and be 10 times as sick due to the dozen other things I caught.
Yeah, option 2 sounds awesome, thanks workplace.
5 sick days? Jeeebus.
Granted, I'm a small business, but I'll give any employee whatever time they damn well need to not look like shit in my office and probably make the problem worse by infecting others.
Hell, even for lower grade stuff, I'd still rather you got some rest for a day or two instead a week spent int he office delivering subpar work.
It's more cost effective for me in the long run to provide sane sick leave instead squeezing the ju-uice. Being a boss with a shred of humanity is just icing on the cake.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Sound like you have hypochondria. Take two placebos and call me maybe.
rewriting history since 2109